Christmas Sewing!!

Saturday I got a buttload of sewing done.

A buttload in the form of ALL of the items I wanted to sew for my sister's christmas gift.

Time to show it all off.

My sister LOVES The Grinch.  I bought a bit of Grinch fabric (back in the summer) and really couldn't think of what I was going to do with it.  Some of it was panels, which I assumed I'd make into pillows or a quilt.  But my sister's not one much for decorative pillows and by the time I got around to sewing there was no time for something big like a quilt.

Then the answer presented itself to me when I won a free stocking pattern.

That's the front and back.

I cut images from the panels and other grinchy fabric I had so I could tell the whole grinch story on the stocking.

Closeups:

"Every who dowin n who-ville liked christmas a lot. . ."

But the Grinch, who lived just north of who-ville, did not.

So the Grinch comes up with a wonder, awful plan.  (to dress as Santa and steal all the gifts--thinking if there are no gifts then there is no christmas).

REDEMPTION ARC (right there on the heel!) leading to a much nicer Grinch mugging with little Cindy Lou Who (who was no more that two--and has antennae--love her antennae).

The hanger is some cool ribbon I bought purely because it was Grinch (and I'd find some use for it).  The lining is some all over print Who fabric.

It turned out very well.  It was my first time working with batting and doing anything truly quilty.  I just randomly pieced the images to each other without really thinking about how I was piecing it (not a lot of measuring except to see if things fit on the stocking shape).

My sister also LOVES The Lorax.  Around the same time I bought the Grinch fabric, I got some Lorax, too.  Again, I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it but I knew I'd find something (and I still do want to make my sister a quilt, with Grinch on one side and Lorax on the other).

I found a free tutorial for a simple zippered pouch so I figured it was a good time to learn how to use the zipper foot that came with my sewing machine (I wasn't even aware I had a zipper foot until I checked--happy surprise there!).

I got lucky and the panel images were just a wee bit bigger than the size the pattern called for, so I just cut them out directly and then cut the lining fabric (per instructions).

I like the image on the back of the bag, with the little boy giving the Onceler the nickel, the nail, and the shell from a great-great-great granddaddy snail.  I thought it was a good image for a pouch (I had a lot of other good images to pick from though).

The tutorial was SUPER easy (I forget now exactly where I got it, so I can't link to it--but there are tons of pouch tutorials out there so it wasn't anything super special) and now I'm going to whip up a few more pouches for extra gifts (and one for myself, too) using some of my stash fabric (I really need to start using up all the fabric I bought--I got out of control buying!).

OH, and I couldn't forget my cat nephew, Lowell.  I made him this:

It's a simple little cat toy using some of the scraps.  That's the other side of the image from the stocking (the Grinch is looking in the mirror as he tries on his santa outfit).  The back is just a scrap of Who fabric.  I stuffed it with polyfill laced with some killer catnip.  That should have him nice and high for the holidays.

Now I'm super excited for Christmas.  I can't wait to give all this to my sister.  I think she'll really like it (I also got her a store bought gift, just in case my handmade stuff either didn't get done or didn't turn out).